The death penalty is a cruel, futile and dangerous punishment, and the Asian region is home to some of the world's leading executioners.
This blog provides information about the death penalty in Asia, supporting the campaign to end executions in the region.

Thursday, 24 July 2008

The Speaker of Indonesia's House of Representatives this week supported the use of the death penalty for corruption offences, despite the global trend towards abolishing it for economic crimes.

Agung Laksono encouraged other members of the House to support the suggestion, claiming it would help prevent the serious social consequences of corruption, according to the Antara newsagency.

"Therefore, there must be legal punishment for corrupters so severe that it will also have a deterrent effect," he said on Wednesday.

He claimed the use of severe penalties such as capital punishment had caused drastic declines in corruption in some countries, although he was not reported as offering any evidence to support the statement.

"This means, the death penalty is an effective means to fight corruption," he said.

"I hope the idea of making corruption punishable by the death sentence will be responded to favourably by House members and the government."

The Jakarta Postreported today that some parliamentarians and anti-corruption activists supported the proposal.

It said in the past six months the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) had arrested six current parliamentarians and scores of high-ranking officials, including a former governor of the Bank of Indonesia.

Governors and former ministers had been jailed for graft since the KPK was formed in 2004.

Sunday, 20 July 2008

Despite what The Jakarta Post described last week as "an increasingly anti-capital punishment sentiment in Indonesia", the government has executed as many people in the past month as it did in the previous three years.

Indonesia has executed six people since June, after three convicted murderers were shot in East Java late last week.

According to reports by The Jakarta Post and newsagency Antara, a woman named Sumiarsih, 60 (also reported as Sumiasih, 59), and her son Sugeng, 44, were executed at Banten, East Java early on Saturday morning (19 July).

They were convicted, along with two other members of their family, of murdering a marine and four members of his family in 1988.

The previous night (18 July), Usep, alias Tubagus Yusuf Maulana, was executed for poisoning eight people in June and July 2007, after they had come to him as a shaman who could "multiply their money".

On 10 July, Ahmad Suradji, 57, was executed in North Sumatra for murdering 42 women and girls over an 11 year period.

Two Nigerian men were shot on 26 June for heroin smuggling offences. Samuel Iwachekawu Okoye and Hansen Anthony Nwaoysa were executed on Nusakambangan prison island, central Java.

Nwaoysa was sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle 600 grams of heroin from Pakistan to Jakarta in January 2001. Okoye was arrested at Jakarta airport with 3.8 kilograms of heroin in the lining of his luggage after flying in from India.

Several recent reports have suggested authorities may be preparing to execute three men sentenced to death over the October 2002 bombing on Bali, which killed 202 people and injured 200.

Thursday, 3 July 2008

In a country known for the official silence surrounding its use of the death penalty, people in Japan have been confronted with an image of their execution chamber -- by a recording made 50 years ago.

The execution of the unknown prisoner, recorded at Osaka detention centre in 1955, has given people a rare and gruesome insight into their country's death penalty, which -- apart from the type of rope used -- has changed little since.

The recording, originally made to train prison workers, was aired in early May as part of a documentary broadcast by Nippon Cultural Broadcasting. (Listen to it on the website of The Guardian newspaper.)

Film-maker Tatsuya Mori stressed the importance of presenting the reality of the death penalty, particularly since the government was trying to conceal it.

"If the justice ministry masks the reality, then it is up to the media to expose it," he told the Asahi Shimbun newspaperpaper.

"There is great significance in letting the public know the truth."

According to the Asahi Shimbun, the station denied it was taking a stand on the death penalty by airing the recording.

"We aren't trying to make a statement for or against the death penalty," a spokesman said.

"Our only intention is to present the reality of executions and let our listeners decide for themselves."

The recording shows the prisoner joking with prison staff, before the trapdoor opens and the rope snaps tight. Buddhist priests are audible chanting in the background while the hanging takes place.

His death is confirmed after 14 minutes.

More hangings, in secretJapan has executed 10 prisoners so far this year, as the current justice minister Kunio Hatoyama accelerates the pace of hangings.

In the country's notoriously secretive death penalty system, a prisoner can spend decades waiting to be hanged, often receiving as little as a few hours' notice they are about to die.

The government has only recently begun confirming the names of the people it has executed.

Human rights campaigners have frequently condemned the lack of official information about the use of the death penalty, saying it has suppressed and distorted public debate about its use.